Camden Alderman Richard Smith said farewell at the close of Monday night’s City Council meeting, noting how much it meant to him to serve as an alderman for the past eight years with such fine colleagues. Smith lost his bid for re-election in the Nov. 3 election, and will be replaced on the council by alderman-elect Rosanne Ward.
At 10:30 a.m. Monday, Nov. 16, Mayor Roger Pafford will swear in Ward and re-elected alderman Brent Hedge. Due to a previously scheduled trip out of town, re-elected alderman Debbie Baldwin will be sworn in at a later time. Aldermen Pat McLin and Travis Pierce, whose terms will not expire for anther two years, complete the 5-person City Council.
During Monday’s meeting, aldermen voted to approve an ordinance to amend the official zoning map of Camden, to rezone the property located at 219 Oakdale Rd. from category R-1, low density residential, to B-2, general business.
The group further agreed to adopt the “International Codes, 2018 Edition” for residential, mechanical, building, plumbing, and fire, to replace the 2012 edition that is currently in use by the city.
Aldermen voted to approve the city’s continued contribution of $2,000 as its shared portion of the annual contact that the county maintains with ONSOLVE to provide Code Red emergency alert services to the county.
Council members approved the purchase of a new backhoe for the Street Department. The existing backhoe has reached the end of its usable life, having contributed more than 14,000 hours of work to the effort of maintaining safe streets in the city.
On the final business of the night, aldermen voted to decline approval of a new water service request to a property near 830 Cantrell Road. Because of a Camden Water Department policy implemented in 1995 and reaffirmed in 2002, the board does not approve additional taps on 2” mains after the maximum limit of 10 taps has been reached, in order to prevent impacting water service to existing customers in the area.
